Stuff

Tonight’s YouGov poll for the Sun has topline figures of CON 40%, LAB 42%, LDEM 9%. The small Labour lead in YouGov’s daily polling looks like it’s being consolidated. Meanwhile net government approval is down to minus 19, the lowest the coalition government have recorded so far.

UPDATE: There is also a new Angus Reid poll, topline figures are CON 35%(nc), LAB 41%(+1), LDEM 9%(-4). I think that six point lead is the biggest Labour have recorded so far this Parliament, and it’s only the second pollster to show the Lib Dems in single figures. Others are presumably up to around 15%, which I think is also the highest any company has shown so far this Parliament.

197 Responses to “YouGov/Sun – 40/42/9”

People lean different ways on different things. There is a stark contrast between people’s economic views (which for most people can be summed up as “do what’s good for me personally, pay for it by taxing people richer than me”) that are generally on the left and people’s views on social and law&order policy (hang ’em, flog ’em, deport ’em, take their benefits away from ’em) which are generally on what is considered the “right”. So you can woo voters in different ways with different policies/rhetoric. Some of the Tories’ civil liberties rhetoric before the election could potentially have impressed some traditionally left wing voters, but I suspect that prejudice against the Tories amongst those voters would make it pretty hard to attract them.

Good points, but never underestimate the power of personality to influence voting behaviour. There are surprisingly largel numbers of non-political voters who make their decision on the basis of the personality of the party leaders. This “presidential” aspect, re-inforced by the TV debates, is rather more important than it once was. Who is the most credible PM is a very powerful vote decider, irrespective of peoples more micro-political views on specific issues.

There is also a substantial herd mentality. Non-political opinion formers (chattering classes etc) get sucked into droping hints about which way the wind is blowing at election time. They want to be sure that they are at all times seen to be in the mainstream (and can benefit from any patronage that comes with the new dispensation).

“You’ve done it again and made my point much more eloquently than me! The 1983 and 1987 elections were interesting ones (1979 to a lesser degree) in the sense that we saw a seismic shift in voting behaviour amongst certain categories of the population. Thatcher attracted significant numbers of “blue collar” voters to the Tory cause, people who Labour would probably have regarded as their “own”, or natural voters, up to then. Maybe some returned to their natural home in 1992 or 1997, who knows, and maybe some 1997 “Blair Tories” did likewise in 2005 and 2010, but the point you make is entirely true. If you didn’t get swing voters then governments would never change hands between parties.

To be honest, I’ve always thought far too much is made of these supposedly core elements of a party’s electoral support, particulary in these political times when there is so much fluidity and volatility in voting behaviour.”

Now I’ve read that there has always been a large chunk of working class British voters who vote for the Tories. Something like a 1/3rd of those voters voted Tory (slightly more in bad years, slightly less in good years). This phenomenon is not shocking from my perspective. In the U.S., working class voters divide on racial lines. Working class blacks, Latinos, and Asians are overwhelmingly Democratic. Working class whites though are not lockstep voters and they swing. If Democrats could get the same level of strength among working class whites in the U.S. that Labour receives in the UK, the GOP would have difficulties remaining as a competitive party.

I think we have to be careful with definitions. I suspect when use the term “working class” you refer to people who in the US would probably characterise themselves as “middle class”, right?

In the UK “middle class” is basically a pejorative term, and lots of people who would be “middle class” in the US (and proud of it) would still consider themselves “working class” in the UK.

So amongst those “working class” voters that Thatcher attracted would be hundreds of thousands of plumbers, electricians and other people who were basically small businessmen, but who talk in thick regional accents, sported tattoos (before they became de rigeur for everyone from the Royal Family down), drove White Vans (the US equivalent would be pickups) and live for the pub and the football.

Some of them were making upwards of £100,000 a year in the 1980s. Economically they were natural Tories, even if their social background might have made us think “core Labour”.

If they had only abstained like good coalition partners, then the Clegg brigade would not have had to vote in favour to get the bill through. Perhaps this fact has escaped you? I assume you weren’t seriously thinking that Clegg would merely abstain and let the bill fail due to some of his own MPs voting against?
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None of the facts escaped me.

The facts escaped you. Nowhere does it say, in the Coalition agreement, that individual Dems can only abstain if a bill will pass anyway.

Nowhere in the Coalition agreement does it say that Dem Ministers are obligated to vote yes to cancel out the no votes of their colleagues.
8-)

What most surprises me about the Fees thing is the fact that it was given to a LibDem to steer through. Smart thinking by Cameron to prevent backsliding? Or really, really bad planning by the coalition managers (particularly the LD ones) in not spotting the beartrap of St Vince having to propose a policy he disagrees with?

By the way, does anyone have a link to any information about the terms of reference of the Browne report set up under Labour? Was it considering any other significant options other than Grad Tax and increased fees?

“So amongst those “working class” voters that Thatcher attracted would be hundreds of thousands of plumbers, electricians and other people who were basically small businessmen, but who talk in thick regional accents, sported tattoos (before they became de rigeur for everyone from the Royal Family down), drove White Vans (the US equivalent would be pickups) and live for the pub and the football.”

Blimey, how many stereotypes do you want to fit into one paragraph?? Dear oh me, wouldn’t life be boring if your pigeon-holed categorisations were true. Maybe you were being a bit tonge-in cheek, but I don’t think you’re right with the serious point I presume you’re trying to make either. Sure, some self employed small business people were attracted to Thatcherism and they may or may not have been former Labour voters, but where I think SocialLiberal is right is that what I would call semi-skilled wage earners were attracted too. Many of there were trade unionists earning below average earnings but were attracted by the image of the “smack of firm leadership”, her industrial relations reforms and her right-to-buy council houses policyt. Now, these really were traditional Labour voters who deserted to Thatcher’s Tory Government in droves in 1983 and 1987. Not many £100,000 p.a earners in there, I don’t think.

I think that Tories may be furious with Cable and the others for being idiots in talking so openly to people they don’t know. I don’t think they (or I) are particulary furious about the opinions expressed by Lib Dem MPs. LibDems are opponents of the Tories. We disagree across a range of issues. We will be fighting each other at elections, and no doubt saying all sorts of rude things about each other. None of that is news.

I think the UK (and the media in particular) are struggling to adapt to the differences between single party and coalition governments. The Telegraph probably understands the difference very well, but has it’s own agenda against the LDs and pro-coalition Tories, and so has decided to stick it’s knife it as best it can.

Ideally I’d have liked their honey traps to have yielded no tittle-tattle at all, but people are human and these tactics are well known to be successful. What would have been a truly astonishing (and devastating for the LDs) outcome would have been if in private LD ministers were waxing lyrical about their “mates” Dave and George and talking about how wonderful all of the new policies were.

“By the way, does anyone have a link to any information about the terms of reference of the Browne report set up under Labour? Was it considering any other significant options other than Grad Tax and increased fees?”

Very broadly drawn, but rather focussed on funding. No consideration of what universities are for, and how to ensure the maintenance of high standards (which are gravely threatened by the marketisation of HE).

Note that a primer consideration was “The goal of widening participation to ensure that the benefits of higher education are open to all”. On which the report fails abjectly.

“Putting aside any feelings you may have about his personal politics, his influence on the policies of UK governments and the wisdom of allowing him deeper control of our media companies, isn’t that quote from Hunt just simple, plain truth?”

Not really. Remember he only has a 39% stake in BSkyB, so what variety there isn’t isn’t entirely down to him (and also Murdoch wouldn’t the one deciding what happens, that probably is divvied out among numerous managers and consultants – so the quote is false on those grounds).

Personally I disagree with the idea that being repeatedly hit on the head about how brilliant the premier league is, is showing great variety. For one thing it should be illegal under the trades description act ;)

And lastly, on any sane person the words Fox News would be enough to stop this take-over. His quote puts Hunt’s sanity in question.

So you noticed the tongue in my cheek?! Although I have to say if you’ve ever lived in Essex, stereotypes can and do walk the streets there…

I was careful to pepper what I said with words like “amongst” and “some of them”. I was not suggesting that Thatcher’s appeal to the working class was restricted to rich electricians, but pointing out that the definition of class in the UK can be very independent of income bracket.

Your own description, whilst I mostly agree with you (particularly on Right To Buy) also contains some generalisations though. There may have been some low-earning, unionised workers who liked Thatcher’s approach to the unions but what I hear constantly on these threads is how those policies caused generations of the Scots, Welsh and non-Southern English working classes to hate her and the Tories with a passion.

I also think we have to give due credit to the Falklands War for framing public opinion about Thatcher, and to return to another topic in the news, perhaps the influence of the red tops.

Well, Vince voted for it. His vote counted. So that’s all that matters then isn’t it?
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Yes, on the subject of tuition fees, that is all that matters. Any spin he puts on it, whether to constituents or Telegraph reporters, is irrelevant.

It was his remarks about having the power to bring down the government that were newsworthy not his wittering about tuition fees. That ship had already sailed.

So… could the Telegraph’s giggling girls get any Labour MPs to say they wanted to bring down this government? I feck’n hope so!!! ;-)

BSkyB may not be financially controlled by Murdoch, but in terms of management/policy is effectively a continuation of Murdoch’s Sky company.

And certainly there will be many people involved in the development of Sky over the last 20 years who will have made a big contribution, but can you name any of them? Murdoch was and is the driving force behind Sky in the UK and several other major satellite providers around the world.

I have no particular axe to grind. I still occasionally read The Times, but I don’t have satellite TV. I get most of my news from the BBC website.

I just don’t think the “neutral starting point” for considering regulatory decisions about BSkyB should be “Ruport Murdoch is the Devil and everything he does is Evil”.

My neutral starting point for this isn’t Murdoch is the devil – that dubious honour goes to the ceo of Google.

My neutral starting point is 1. monopolies are bad (reduces variety and choice) and 2. murdoch’s programming is sh*te. So no, I’m not a neutral in this affair. My problem is that I don’t think Hunt is either.

I suppose I can’t really comment on Sky programming, but I happen to think that the programming of all the other channels is “sh*te” too. I’d probably exclude the History and Discovery channels, but I’m damned if I’m going to pay all that money just to watch the occasional documentary. And BBC2, 3 and 4 aren’t universally terrible.

Does Sky really enjoy a monopoly though? On my Freeview I can watch all sorts of stuff that’s nothing to do with Murdoch, right up to the amusingly daft (and slightly disturbing) Russia Today. I’ve even watched a bit of Fox News when I’ve been in the States and although it is clearly aimed at a right-wing market, it’s not that egregious and was clearly aimed at redressing what (albeit on a rather different centre of political gravity) was seen as the left-bias of CBS, CNN etc.

If I could dig out a quote from a politician about the BBC saying it was excellent and had done more to advance the television industry in the UK than any other organisation, would that disqualify that politician from making decisions about the future of the BBC? Does “neutral” mean having no opinion at all about something?

Last night’s You Gov was better than it looked for the Cons, as their share of 2010 GE voters was unusually low in the sample. Also there was only 0.5% of a difference between Con and Lab support, so rounding disguised as lot. I suspect Cons would have been ahead of Lab on a sample with GE shares of support more typical of those in other YouGov samples.

Also, LD share was approx 7.8% only despite 26.2% of the sample being identified as 2010 GE LD supporters. Subject to the usual health warnings about false recall of actual GE voting, the poll seems even worse for them than the initial impression.

No doubt some Tory ministers have had visits from buxom beauties that the Telegraph are saving up for after Christmas so I guess we’ll find out.

I’d guess that those MPs who were most upset about the coalition deal would be very vocal about it. Those who were most comfortable with the deal would probably accept it as “politics as normal”. I think on the whole LDs are probably less seasoned in terms of suffering slings and arrows than Tories are though, at least at a parliamentary level.

And in fact, politically, such criticism might be manna from Heaven for the LDs.

TORY MINISTER “I can’t stand that Nick Clegg. He totally scotched my fanstastic plan to sell the babies of poor people off to Taiwanese bio-technology companies and spend the proceeds on equipping Freedom Fighters in Bolivia with the profits. Bleeding Heart Liberals! Their so left wing. Sticking to their principles all the time. Gets right up my nose! I do hope we win the next election so we can ban them and shoot all their leaders”.

Neutral would be having an opinion, but being able to put it aside in the favour of impartiality. To use an example you would be able to judge on this, I wouldn’t ;)

“would that disqualify that politician from making decisions about the future of the BBC”

No, but traditionally anyone who’s said this then goes and cuts the BBC’s budget, or puts more restrictions on what it can do, so it’s a moot point.

“Does Sky really enjoy a monopoly though?”

It does in sport, not yet in everything else. The worry is that if Murdoch obtains all of Sky, he will then use that money to acquire parts of ITV or Channel 4 or other things. I also wouldn’t put it past him to decrease the number of channels available on the Sky box and put the prices up.

The Dems know the Tory back-benchers ‘hate’ them. Every time the Tories see a Dem, it reminds them that they couldn’t win an election when they thought they were a shoo-in.

All the lovey-dovey spin has come from the PM’s office & Nick Clegg; like I said, they both wanted to milk the public sentiment: “aww, look at the wee politicians all playing nicely together isn’t that cute goo goo gah gah”.
8-)

But if BSkyB already enjoys a monopoly on sport coverage, surely that’s the issue that needs to be tackled, regardless of who owns the company. It’s not as if the other shareholders are some sort of “internal opposition” to Murdoch that tries to thwart his plans for BSkyB making pots and pots of money.

In a way sports is a sore point for me. I think the TV money going into football has almost destroyed it. But if another company can make a killing out of it, why don’t they? I know that when the original Sky and BSB were in competition they both lost money hand over fist, but surely there are other corporations with deep pockets that could make a mint out of TV rights if it is such a sure-fire moneyspinner?

Surely the real message the coalition were trying to put out was “Look, even parties with very different views can sit down and cooperate for the benefit of the country”. What we are getting is a little look under the bonnet at how that cut-and-shut automobile actually works.

Until now most of the Labour criticism was about how the LibDems had abandoned their principles and “gone native”. What we are seeing is that actually they are grudgingly cooperating with another party they don’t like to try and get the business of government done. That seems healthy to me. And as the LibDems are effectively the “party of Coalitions” they can hardly complain.

Of all the challenges facing the newly-elected Labour government in 1997, it would have been impossible to predict that it would be university fees that would bring Prime Minister Tony Blair closest to defeat.

When it was proposed that the fee should be hiked to £3,000 per year, it created a bigger backbench rebellion than any other policy.

Therefore, not so much hypocrisy from Labour when they encouraged Dems to rebel over the trebling of fees.
8-)

The challanges facing the new government pale in to insignificance compared to those encountered by the coalition government this year. It is typical of Labour to preach one thing in opposition and then do some thing else when they are faced with reality….they have reverted to we will spend more on everything and no one will have to pay for it.

And vice versa! Everything you’re saying can be turned round the other way!

Also, if you work out the Maths, if all Libs abstained on a vote that Tories overwhelmingly supported (like tuition fees, think there were c.6 blue rebels?) then of course the vote would pass.

As soon as you start talking about some of the Libs voting either for (which, incidentally, you’d surely expect them to do a fair bit of the time as a government partner) or against a bill, then of course the dynamic changes.

All I am pointing out is it works both ways (I understand you have understandable partisan reasons for putting your slant on it, of course :)).

“What would have been a truly astonishing (and devastating for the LDs) outcome would have been if in private LD ministers were waxing lyrical about their “mates” Dave and George and talking about how wonderful all of the new policies were.”

Of course SOME of them probably were (inevitably I would say). Do you really think that the Telegraph would publish those though?

You are right, and this is the problem for Clegg. He has established a reputation of arguing black is white – on his climb down on tuition fees for example, where his insistance that the new policy is the best option is completely at odds with what he insisted just 5 months earlier, and he just blithely carried on insisting he was right, rather than trying to use his abstention agreement and say the issue was distasteful but necessary.

Likewise he has tried to insist that Lib Dems and Tories are getting on ‘in the national interest’ when it is now clear that by and large they detest each other.

Clegg just looks supremely foolish for trying to kid people. As ever with these things, it’s not the actual facts that hurt but the pointless effort to try to hide them. Clegg should have been much more distant from Cameron and been upfront about clashes instead of trying to morph himself into a mini Cameron and parrot Coulson’s line about Labour’s legacy.

In my pre Christmas pub circle last night, Clegg was the unanimous winner of the highly prestigious ‘Politician That Most Makes You Want to Throw a Brick at the TV 2010’ award. We had my partner and I, three former Lib Dem voters, two current Lib Dems, four Tories, two Labour and one part time communist.

You said “…Putting aside any feelings you may have about his personal politics, his influence on the policies of UK governments and the wisdom of allowing him deeper control of our media companies, isn’t that quote from Hunt (“[Rupert Murdoch] has probably done more to create variety and choice in British TV than any other single person”) just simple, plain truth?…”

Hmm. It was arguably true ten years ago. However, it’s a bit overtaken by events. Instead, may I humbly suggest the people who coded the BBC iPlayer? Better still, what about YouTube?

Surely Clegg and Cameron aren’t doing anything that Brown and Blair didn’t do in spades? As I say, we are still in an adjustment period. It will take a while before coalition partners work out just how much like a majority party government they have to look, and before the media get bored of trying to test them to destruction.

Unless we just have a new rule. No Coalitions. If no one party gets a majority, we either award one automatically to the party with the highest vote, or we keep holding elections every Thursday until the country gets the hint and gives someone the crown?

As for iPlayer, I don’t think the coding of it was the achievement. It was the getting computer and internet speeds to the point where streaming decent quality video was a viable option.

The kudos for that, though huge, is dispersed between thousands of people and didn’t really depend on a Herculean effort from any one participant, so I don’t think it compares, really.

You’re right in a way though. The advent of fast internet makes the monopolisation of TV channels a much less terrifying prospect (although still undesirable). I suspect within ten years the main avenue of supply for media signals will be broadband. That suits me down to the ground as the sort of thing I like to watch isn’t expensive to make, it’s just not popular enough with “normal people” to justify the expense of distribution via the cumbersome hardware of the TV companies.

“I think we have to be careful with definitions. I suspect when use the term “working class” you refer to people who in the US would probably characterise themselves as “middle class”, right?

In the UK “middle class” is basically a pejorative term, and lots of people who would be “middle class” in the US (and proud of it) would still consider themselves “working class” in the UK.

So amongst those “working class” voters that Thatcher attracted would be hundreds of thousands of plumbers, electricians and other people who were basically small businessmen, but who talk in thick regional accents, sported tattoos (before they became de rigeur for everyone from the Royal Family down), drove White Vans (the US equivalent would be pickups) and live for the pub and the football.”

Not quite. When I speak of working class, I refer to unskilled workers who make low incomes and unskilled minimum wage type workers….your housekeepers, gas station attendants, gardeners, busboys, convenience store workers, janitors, McDonalds or other fast food workers, car wash workers, valet parkers, public transportation workers, DMV workers, postal employees, etc. Then you have people who work on construction sites (day laborers who move job to job) and on other projects who are decidedly blue collar. They’re working class. However, your fully skilled electricians and plumbers are not working class. They’re skilled and middle class.

I did not realize that the term middle class was a perjorative term in the UK. Why is that?

Without getting into a whole stereotyping contest here, the image of a middle class American is of a family who lives in the suburbs, 2-3 kids, single family home (either a track home or a mini-mansion), two cars in the driveway, separate IRAs for the kids’s college tuition and for retirement, and vacations to Disneyland. When it comes to jobs, the term “middle class” is synonomous with white collar corporate workers, management types, and small business owners. Blue collar workers who belong to powerful unions (and still have jobs) are often considered middle class as well.

When you think of working class folks, the image that comes to mind is the ghettos and barrios in the cities or if they’re white…trailer trash.

What’s ironic (or perhaps tragic) is that there is perhaps something like 20% of the population who believe they’re in the top 1% who are not actually in the top 1%. They vote overwhelmingly Republican. Yet among voters who actually are in the top 1%, they vote overwhelmingly Democratic.

The lack of knowledge of the media or monopoly thereof and the feelings of ordinary voters who watch television displayed by many of your comments is quite frightening.
Firstly there is a growing resentment for the state broadcaster continuing to be funded by a poll tax (aka license fee) on the viewer, particularly as so many pay a lot more to view what they choose and don’t see why they should subsidise others in watching the BBC. If its so good make it subscrition like Sky lets see who gets more paying to view it. Anyway the time for the need of a state broadcaster when we have internet, cable, satellite and commercial broadcasting is long long ago redundant.
Secondly there is no digital monopoly for sky, many use freeview or view on the net.
Thirdly if the sky channels you don’t like are sh*te then don’t subscribe to them, that is why there are packages.
Fourthly if you think the diatribe of endless repeats, reality tv and soaps offered by the terrestial stations is not sh*te please enlighten me of the difference.
Fifthly Sky do not have a monopoly of sports. Many are shown on other channels. Even with the premier league it is shown live on ESPN, and you can access skysports without a dish via BTVision or Virgin as well as highlights on BBC. A number of sporting events are protected. And other events are shown on a variety of channels. what is true is that Sky have dedicated several channels to sport and people have shown themselves willing to pay to see the premium sports, good luck to them, they get what they want.
The print media is split between a few moguls, it is sad but there is no change there over many decades is there, Murdoch or no Murdoch.